JohnAMG

This afternoon I use voice rec. to change from FM to SAT2 today. Soon after the radio made the switch I lost the sound completely. I tried different things to get the sound back and no luck. Of course at this time I was gettig antsy and couldn't believe this is happening to my fairly new Lexus. And then I decided to try again by pushing the voice rec button again on the steering wheel. I got my sound back immediately and save myself the agony of listening to my wife nagging why Mercedes is superior to Lexus. Has this happen to anyone of you???

John

25cliffy

I think I've read on many posts that the voice commands on the Gx is laughable. That has been my experience as well. Thank goodness every voice command can be done manually!

Enigma869

As I've posted many times on these boards, the voice recognition is horrendous on ANY vehicle offering it. As for your wife who thinks it's so much better with Mercedes, I've owned two Mercedes in the past 3 years, and the feature doesn't work any better on Mercedes. And for what it's worth, I don't even think the competition is close between Mercedes and Lexus is even close! Lexus' track record speaks for itself. The reliability of their vehicles is surpassed by NOBODY! Mercedes ranks towards the very bottom of every reliability list in the auto industry. That said, Lexus will NEVER have the prestige of Mercedes Benz. They are, afterall, Toyota! Not to mention, Mercedes Benz has always been the standard of luxury vehicles (unless you've ever owned one!), and Lexus has only been in existence for about 15 years. In case you couldn't tell from my posting, I'll take my LX470 over any Mercedes I've ever driven in my life!

John from Boston

The G Man

Actually, the voice command function is pretty good in the Acura line, one of the best in the industry in my opinion. As far as Mercedes is concerned, a frined of mine have a ML, what a piece of crap that is. every time he gets into my GX, his eyes glows with envy.

SilverLady

Heh, heh-

Every time I try to show off my voice recognition in the Nav, it does something weird. "FM2" has gotten me Chinese restaurant icons, gas station icons and my map zoomed in. The most useful command is "POI off" - it usually works and I can unclutter the map from the last few voice attempts.

Tuning stations, volume, etc. is more easily done from the steering wheel - you have to push a button anyway. Voice command makes sense when you can avoid several layers of menus, or use a function that is locked from the screen while moving. Thankfully, voice command doesn't actually affect the vehicle - imagine yelling "brake!" and having the lights flash on and off!

As for Mercedes - it just isn't an option. I have never bought a German car and probably never will. I have trouble even imagining it.

GS3Tek

iTrader: (8)

Voice recognition is a joke. Even if it works great, I don't find the need to use voice though. I just push everything manually on my steering wheel anyway.

I cut out 5 small screen protectors for the mode, arrow up, arrow down, vol + and - because I use that like 95% of the time. I don't think I ever touched the radio in the dash.

I don't know about the navigation for the current German cars, but our 2001 S500 is horrible. It's super slow and cumbersome to use compared to Lexus.

BobsGX

I don't think Acura's voice recognition is much better then Lexus. Over the past year, I test driven a couple of TL's and MDX's. Many times when I or the salesmen would say post office or chinese restaurant, the nav system would interpret it as something else. They all stink.

98Nav400

Yep, my wife nags too.....

loflin

I think we are missing the OP (JohnAMG) original point/question.

While we all agree Voice Reco leaves much too be desired...

His problem was after trying to use Voice Reco to do something, THEN his system seemed to be hung up. Not a problem of not recognizing or doing the wrong command. He lost his audio. Then he hit the Voice Reco start button (to say an command) and the sound came back "immediately". Which seems to be before he even "commanded" anything.

JohnAMG, please elaborate on what you mean " I tried different things to get the sound back and no luck."

What did you try? Did you press any of the buttons on the console or any of the soft buttons on the touch screen? Was everything frozen?

robinzon

It IS possible your button is sticky... that is the car thinks you are trying to enter the command and does not time out.. did you spill anything over the steering wheel?

BTW: Lexus (and Range Rover) use DENSO software which is THE BEST ON THE MARKET hands down as far as Navigation is concerned. Acura's Nav is crap (whether it has good voice recon or not and even though it is ALPINE) as well as most other manufacturers. BTW my uncle's ML had its ENGINE, Transmission, Seats, Brakes REPLACED... so how do you like dem apples.... Ranger Rover is a different story all together has similar electronics to lexus the only problem is that the 4x4 computer is mounted in the back and with rain it can short out and you loose everything but I think if the prices were a wee bit better on the Rover I would of gotten it if only for the fact that the Nav system is the same as Lexus

I HOPE that the new Nav update will get us to the same version as IS350, BTW ANYONE KNOWS WHAT THE SOFTWARE VERSION on the IS350 IS?

JohnAMG

I change from FM-CD-Tape-AM-SAT, the screen changes but still no sound. I turned off the system for a few minutes and still no sound. I was able to change stations and sources on the steering wheel buttons and still no sound. So the last thing I tried was to push the Voice Rec. button again on the steering wheel. And this time the sound came back without I speak any command. It is probably just a software glitch.

I don't want this thread to turn into Mercedes vs. Lexus., and it is not my intention to do so. I own both vehicles and I like them for different reasons, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy either Lexus or Mercedes again. And regarding my wife nagging, if you are married for many years like I am, you know what that is like

John

P.S. My wife and I both agreed the Lexus by far has the best NAV. Even better than the new Mercedes ML500 we test drove.

SilverLady

John-

Is there any possibility the system took your command as 'MUTE"? Mute might be cancelled by hitting volume up or down, but not station change. It seems like the system was doing everything, just no sound.

JohnAMG

I tried the volume buttons on both the steering wheel and the radio but still no sound. We will see on wednesday when I take the family into Buffalo NY, and I am hopeful this won't happen again.

John